Guest Blog: Why having a PT is like being a contestant on the bachelor

When I first started with Chris as my PT I was struck by how awesome it was to have someone totally focused on me and my exercise and health needs. Every time I saw him he’d check up on my nutrition, how I’d be feeling, if I’d been to the gym since our last session, and so on. He’d even design extra exercise programs for me. It was amazing. But more than that, it was kinda like having a psychologist. I got to whinge about my husband. I got to whinge about my kids. Everything was about me. It was just like a relationship should be.

But early on in our relationship I went to the gym to do a session on my own and had a horrid realisation: while Chris was my only PT, Chris actually had multiple other clients that he would train with. Even though I had known this in theory, it wasn’t until I saw it in action that I felt the betrayal. It suddenly dawned on me that having a PT was just like being a contestant on the bachelor. Cos when you train with Chris, you kinda feel like you are his most favourite client ever, that you are the strongest, coolest, healthiest human being out there. You feel like you could throw a kettle bell across a room or burpie your way across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, without even breaking a sweat. You feel like you could go to the local farmer’s markets and be the most savvy purchaser of organic produce out there (yep, with Chris it’s not just about exercise but about healthy eating, people!). But then he leaves you, and goes to his next client. You just kinda wish every other contestant (oops, sorry I meant “client”) would disappear so that you could have a PT 24/7. Cos imagine how fit you would be then!

And then there’s the times when I go to the gym to do sessions on my own. If I know Chris isn’t there, I just laze about. Just like contestants on the bachelor do when Mr bachelor isn’t it the room. I mean they don’t give a shit about hair and make up when no-one is there to see them. Nope, they just sit there bitching about the other contestants. But if I know Chris is going to be there, I really try my hardest to make a good impression: I apply my rouge (all over my face), wet my t-shirt (under the arms), and make sure I walk right by him, and breathlessly exclaim how I’ve just finished an awesome session ALL ON MY OWN. Then I pick my kids up out of the gym crèche, go next door to the gym café to get my banana bread and chocolate milkshake, knowing that I am SO much fitter because I have a PT.

*ActiveMumma is a pseudonym for an otherwise ordinary person who has daily existential struggles with the responsibilities of parenthood and who has the occasional overwhelming urge to run away (with a good book, or at the very least the latest season of KUWTK) and never return. But, of course, she loves her adorable and perfect little angels way too much to ever abandon them, at least on any long-term basis.